Thoughts on Life, Love, Politics, Hypocrisy and Coming Out in Mid-Life

Monday, September 14, 2015

Donald Trump and the Media's Phony Objectivity

I continually bemoan the irresponsibility of the mainstream media and it's insistence on engaging in "balanced" reporting even when the end product ends up more as fiction writing or GOP propaganda. The GOP has benefited tremendously from this refusal to admit that the GOP has ventured into the realm of insanity. Whether the phenomenon is due to a desire to pretend that America still has a functioning political system or a reluctance to attack the GOP lunacy since much of it traces to the :godly folk" - the media never wants to paint the true picture of "conservative" Christian extremists - the end result is that the nation is being severely harmed. As noted many times here, if the media had done its job and not become the simpering lap dog of Bush/Cheney, the Iraq War could have been avoided. A piece in Salon looks at the consequences of the mainstream media not doing its job. Here are highlights:

[I]f the media—especially the dominant elite media—really wants to know
who’s responsible for Trump’s rise, one place they should start looking
is right in their bathroom mirrors.

I
know, I know. Trump is a clownish figure far removed from the sort of
seriousness they strive to cultivate. Surely they can’t be blamed for
him, right?

Wrong. Here’s why: As Congress returns, there’s a looming threat of yet another government shutdown. Once unthinkable, then disastrous
when Gingrich introduced them, shutdown threats have become a part of
normal politics in the Obama era, thanks in large part to “balanced”
journalism, which has helped to reframe them as normal, if perhaps a little bit
risky—and therefore, a bit titillating. With a large part of the GOP
buying into this fantasy view of how politics works, they were at first
content to vent their hatred primarily on President Obama and
congressional Democrats, but now their anger has widened to the entire
political class—which is actually well deserved, in a way. But it’s not
just the GOP politicians who egged them on who are to blame—the
“balanced” media played a starring role as well.

When the whole political system gets pulled for years in the
direction of government-by-temper-tantrum—and the media treats it as
perfectly normal—it really should not be so surprising when an
intemperate blowhard like Trump suddenly shows up to steal the show.

The
“balanced” media has promoted this dysfunction around government
shutdowns in at least three distinct ways: First, the media presents the
shutdown shorn of historical context, with no indication of how
radical, novel or one-sided it is, or of how it relates to a broader
range of related radical and novel right-wing strategies, or to the
dramatic underlying rightward shift of the GOP in Congress . . .

Second, the media adopts a “balanced” approach to reporting on the
prospects of a shutdown, and the shutdown itself. It seeks to place
blame on both sides . . . regardless of how inaccurate this is. This falsely balanced reporting
works in favor of the absolute worst actors—always giving them the
“benefit of the doubt,” and against those who are most public-minded . . .

Third, the media “balances” any residual negativity that the shutdown
perpetrators might be left with stories intended to cast the other
party—the Democrats–in an equally bad light. The media’s months-long
obsession over problems with the Obamacare website filled this function
perfectly.

I wrote a story identifying “nine distinct bodies of evidence” contradicting the “both sides did it” narrative:

(1) The longstanding GOP fixation on shutting down the government.
(2) The GOP’s creation of the shutdown crisis by blocking the budget reconciliation process.
(3) The emergence and evolution of the incoherent Ted Cruz/Tea Party plan to force a shutdown over ‘Obamacare’.
(4) The record of prominent Republican politicians and others who repeatedly warned against forcing a government shutdown.
(5) The contrary historical record of some Republicans downplaying the severity of the shutdown.
(6)
The record of drastic Democratic budget concessions embodied in the
“clean continuing resolution” which House Republicans rejected.
(7) The polling evidence that only GOP base voters are opposed to political compromise—and are indifferent to crisis.
(8) Evidence that GOP base intransigence drives policy.
(9) The framework of American legislative history.

There
were stories here and there in the press touching on all of the above,
but because of the ideologically driven commitment to “balance,” they
were kept isolated and atomized, never consolidated into a coherent
picture of what was actually going on at the time. And for good reason:
the GOP wanted a shutdown, and the public overwhelmingly did not.

[T]he GOP had severely damaged itself, and stood a very real chance of
losing control of the House in the 2014 midterms. The shutdown strategy
had proved itself to be a disaster. It should have thoroughly
discredited all who had argued for it, and all the thinking that led to
it. That’s the clear lesson that should have been drawn. But then the
“balanced” media got to work, and all the the above was swiftly
negated—not just forgotten—by media’s “balanced” shift of attention to
the problems with the Obamacare website.

The short-term result of that was that it protected the GOP from
suffering any consequences for the shutdown. In the 2014 midterms, this
meant not only holding the House, but taking over the Senate as well.

Karma,
however, is a bitch. The long-term results are now showing up in the
form of the Trump campaign’s dominance, and the crumbling of more
“mainstream” “responsible” conservatives—not just Jeb Bush, but the
entire suite of governors and ex-governors . . .

[T]his “balanced” coverage removed all cost for the GOP’s extremism: They didn’t have to be for
anything, they could just be against, and not suffer any consequence
for the pain they caused. But, at the same time, they didn’t accomplish any of the impossible things they had promised.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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